In the PEI rain, University Avenue from the Cenotaph (click for larger image)
By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, May 6, 2009
They said it was going to rain today and it has. It is supposed to rain again maybe Friday or Saturday. Suits me fine.
I spent two weekends getting my lawn ready for the rain. Two weekends ago, I raked up all the old leaves and thatch. OK so I used my lawn tractor but I did haul it and compost it. That’s a lot of work for a guy who is perpetually tired.
Last weekend I fertilized it and spread these corn pellets that are supposed to kill weed seeds. They don’t kill them as much as stop them from growing. We’ll see.
I used to be a Lawn Chem-Man with rubber gloves industrial mask and sprayers. Until I killed most of the edges one year with Round-up which will do that.
Two years ago I went all natural with natural fertilizer which is really fish meal. It doesn’t work well. It doesn’t have enough nitrogen so the grass is weak and gets crowded out by weeds. The corn pellets is new and guaranteed to work.
I hate weeds. For you walking around upright like most people, you only see the weeds far off in your neighbors yard. You get to look right into peoples eyes or dart a look at their cleavage. Woo hoo!
For us wheelchair people, straight ahead is right into some people’s fat belly buttons or the bare mid-riff thing. We don’t dare stare at cleavage because a) you get a sore neck and b) it’s too obvious. Women think you’re a prevert. (def. someone who stares at women’s cleavage or other places before the Green Party arrived).
Nope in a wheelchair it is all belly buttons, small sized children or looking down at weeds in your own lawn.
Personally I get in a whole lot less trouble if I stare down at the weeds, which are vexatious, than belly buttons, which are flirtatious. If you know what I mean.
I have this obsession to criss-cross the lawn bending over in my power chair. I dig those darned weeds out one by one. Every day a small patch gets done. The whole lawn takes two weeks at which time I start over.
This works great if you have no other life and enjoy spooking the neighbors. “Oh my God George, he’s had a stroke. Is he foaming at the mouth?”
“Hi, Mrs. Smith,” I like to call out when they look really nervous.
This year it’s corn pellets. Right now they are expanding in the rain all over my lawn and driveway. Who knows if they work. Keep the rain coming.
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